Going With The Wind Fifty Years After Gone With The Wind Was Published, Atlanta And Jonesboro, Ga., May Be Just Awakening To The Enduring Tourist Potential Of The Old South Classic.

June 15, 1986|By Jean Allen, Travel Editor

JONESBORO, Ga. -- This is Gone With the Wind country, the land of Tara and Twelve Oaks, plantation homes of Scarlett O`Hara and the Wilkes family.

But anyone who drives off Interstate 75 into this little town in green, rolling country 16 miles south of Atlanta won`t find much to remind him of those fictional houses, or the gracious Old South created by Margaret Mitchell in the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Academy Award-winning movie that enchanted America in the 1930s.

They`ll find no traces of the lifestyle of Scarlett and Rhett, Ashley and Melanie and Mitchell`s other fascinating Southerners, who lived and loved their way through the Civil War and its aftermath. All they`ll find, past the highway clutter of motels, shopping centers and car dealerships, are Scarlett O`Hara and Rhett Butler drives, the name Tara on a boulevard, bank, shopping center, real estate office and building, and a scattering of old homes with Civil War connections.

One restored house said to be ``reminiscent of Tara`` is open only occasionally and lacks furnishings. The railway station that serves as headquarters of a Gone With the Wind celebration is not the Civil War-era original, and the steam train that will run excursions during the celebration -- June 20-29 -- was built long after the way years.

A GWTW THEMNE PARK?

But as Jonesboro and Atlanta gear up to celebrate the novel`s 50th anniversary this month, there are signs that they`re beginning to realize the enduring nature of the Gone With the Wind phenomenon. And they`re tyring to do something about it. The scattered, meager traces of Mitchell and her book in libraries, vacant lots and tumbledown buildings are to be replaced by an elaborate, $12 million tourist-attracting memorial that would include a real ``Tara.``

Marketing studies done in the past few years show that what Americans most often think of in connection with Atlanta -- next to media and sports magnate Ted Turner and his teams -- is the Old South of Margaret Mitchell`s Gone With the Wind saga.

``People were always asking me ,`Where can I see Gone With the Wind country? Where`s Tara?` when I worked at Atlanta (Hartsfield International) Airport,`` said Pat Smith, a Jonesboro woman who worked at an airport car rental counter for 12 years.

``That`s what people want to see, no question about it,`` said Karin Koser of the Georgia Department of Industry and Trade.

``And what do we have to show people? Absolutely nothing,`` said Herb Bridges of Atlanta, who owns what`s believed to be the world`s largest collection of Gone With the Wind memorabilia, wants to exhibit it but can`t find any backers.

Bridge`s frustration is only part of the string of setbacks that Gone With the Wind have encountered.

The old plantation house near Jonesboro, where Mitchell used to visit elderly relatives -- ``she was sitting on the knees of Civil War veterans listening to war stories there from the time she was 4`` -- is gone, hauled four miles down the road to Talmadge Farms in Lovejoy by Betty Talmadge, ex- wife of Herman Talmadge, former Georgia governor and U.S. senator.

Jonesboro, Clayton County and Atlanta`s big plans for a Gone with the Wind 50th anniversary celebration had to be scaled down because the planners ended up with more enthusiasm than money.

``We`ve been beating our heads against the wall, meeting with corporations all over Atlanta since last December,`` said Bridges. ``Not one has given us a cent.``

So instead of the handsomely mounted exhibit of his thousands of Gone With the Wind souvenirs and books, Bridges will display whatever fits into a small area of the Omni International Hotel in downtown Atlanta. ``Ted Turner (whose company is majority owner of Omni) donated a big display area,`` said Bridges. ``But we couldn`t raise the money needed to have professoinal exhibitors mount the display.``

This month`s celebration may turn out to be only a dress rehearsal for December 1989, the 50th anniversary of the premiere of the movie starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. By then, there may be a lot to see in Jonesboro.

There are plans to build an elaborate Margaret Mitchell Memorial, consisting of three homes connected with Mitchell and her Gone With the Wind legend, on a 25-acre plot. The land, part of the old Fitzgerald plantation, was donated to the museum project by the Fitzgerald heirs (descendants of Margaret Mitchell`s maternal great-grandfather, Philip Fitzgerald). ``They finally donated the property after years of bitter feuding,`` said J.D. Coleman, who`s coordinating the Gone With the Wind 50th Anniversary Celebration.

The Clayton County Chamber of Commerce and Historical Jonesboro organized a task force that made a study and is having renderings made.

``Now all we need is $12 million,`` Coleman said.

``If we can raise the money it will be something; it will be our Disney World,`` said Bridges.